Whistler Town Plaza Suites- Bear Lodge
We rented an apartment at the Bear Lodge by de website [--]. The process was very easy and everything worked very well. As we arrived de owner was there to show us the place and give some explanations.
We stayed in a one bedroom apartment with very confortable king bed (enough for a couple), equipped kitchen (dishwasher, toaster, large refrigerator, oven, microwaves), a bathroom (dryer, complimentary soap and shampoo), livingroom with sofabed, fireplace and balcony and a small laundry with wash and dryer machines and an iron. And the most important: The Location! In the middle of Whistler Villagge, next to all restaurants, cafes, shops and the gondola.

The place was very clean with lots of extra towels in the bathroom ( they provide maid service only if you ask to, pay extra), new and clean linens ( for the sofabed also). But not all units are the same, depends on the owner.

We had a wonderful time there (me, my husband and a friend). We didn’t care about the walking distance to the lifts, we were free to do whatever we want, used to meet in the end of the day (after skiing) in a restaurant or bar and it was easy to come and go to the apartment to change ski boots and leave the equipment there.

We din’t have a problem at all with the noise outside, in deed, we didn’t hear a thing at night. After all we enjoyed it a lot including the skiing, the restaurants/ bars and our very nice apartment. We absolutely will try to stay at the Bear Lodge next time.

I stayed here with my wife for 4 nights at the start of April. We really enjoyed our stay. We stayed in a 1 bedroom in the Deer lodge. The apartments are completely privately owned so it can be hit and miss what you get in them - comfort of beds etc.

Our room was great - full kitchen - we actually ate in 1 night which we never do at Whistler. We didnt experience any noise and we were there over the weekend and our room faced the village. The balcony is great plac to sit and unwind with a beer after skiing.

The downsides are two fold

1. The distance to the lifts is about 7-10 minutes. If you had kids it would be a long walk. On our last day we took the car up to Blackcombs base II car park and got on the gondola from there

2. This is NOT a hotel. It is private suites rented out by a secretarial service. Consequently there are no hotel touches. You need to take garbage out and you need to clean yourself as maid service is once every four days.

Apart from those two things its great

We will consider going back

We stayed in a studio in Deer Lodge on the second floor overlooking the village stroll the first week of April 2007.

Cons:
-Small room, ok for a couple, but cramped with three people. Our unit 262 was one of the smallest rooms. The Murphy Bed was a bit of a surprise and one of the legs to support it was a little wobbly. When my sister joined us for three days to sleep on the sofa bed, it got extremely cramped as the sofa bed folds out and basically abuts the murphy bed. The sofa bed was also lumpy and uncomfortable.

-Loud drunk people at night on Village Stroll. We were told that we would only hear noise for a little bit at 2am on Saturday night. We heard drunk people every night. Not sure what it is about Whistler, maybe it's the drinking age of 18, but the drunks we heard always were screaming and banging around on the garbage cans. One night our upstairs neighbors also made noise. This was not pleasant at all.

-Walk to lift was pretty far. It took 10+ minutes, but with all your gear that 10 minutes is painful. We took to wearing our sneakers to the lifts carrying our boots and paying for storage for our gear. One day of walking in our boots to the lifts smashed our toes and wore us out. And walking back after a day of intense skiing kills you.

-You have to take out your garbage to the cans in the parking garage area. There aren't really any good marked signs of finding this area and it is really far away from the elevator. And the garbage area is really confusing and disgusting. There are different marked areas for things like "organic recycling" etc... but no marked can for just garbage... it's a mess, it smells, and you feel like you need to be sanitized after going down there. And then it's confusing how to get back in.

-Paying for parking. They make you pay $10 per day. But we discovered that you don't have to tell them because if you don't tell them you have a car they won't know so then you don't have to pay.

Pros:
-Clean room
-Washer/Dryer a definite plus
-nice fireplace
-good location for walking around the village and close to the IGA supermarket.

We recently stayed here in the DEAR Lodge building and had booked a 2 bedroom apartments along with a Studio for 9 nights. This was booked via whistler.com but the booking was facilitated via Whistler Premier.

The accommodation is all quite standard but the units offer all the facilities you will need including full laundry even in a studio! the 2 bedroom apaprtment was OK but the bedrooms were small. The studio was also small and space is VERY cramped if you use all the bedding!!!

The location is very convenient as it's on the village stroll which is a pedestrian only walk through the centre of the village that ends up at the mountian base for gondola access (less than 10 min walk). The only downside is the noise at night especially weekends, you really can hear everything so bring ear plugs!

Market Place, restaurants, coffee shops are all on your doorstep.